Managing Crime and Community Safety - Assignment Example

(Criminology) Managing Crime Part 2 Community Safety Section This section of the study discusses about The 1998 Crime and Disorder Act andits effectiveness on community safety, to understand how it failed to mainstream community safety. This section would discuss what the Act describes, the concept of community safety, and to what extent the Act failed or succeeded. The term ‘community safety’ refers to the working of various agencies together in cooperation with the local authority of a region such that crime and disorder in the region can be prevented, otherwise which the living of the people in the society would be affected. Under the 1998 Crime and Disorder Act, there are strategies are implemented for this purpose. Work is achieved with partnerships with several agencies, and other representatives of the business and voluntary communities and local groups. A crime audit is an essential part of this process (What is community safety? 2013). The primary objective of the Act is to “make provision for preventing crime and disorder” (Crime and Disorder Act 1998 1998). This includes the preventing crimes against children or aggressive offences taking place in the society and also bringing in changes in the criminal justice system. With this Act various amendments have been made in the system along with abolition of the death penalty for criminals (Crime and Disorder Act 1998 1998). While partnership working has benefitted different regions to deal with crime, mostly after the occurrence of the offence (Berry et al 2009); failure occurred as the concept of community safety was considered too broadly. Hence it involved so many issues, such as education, housing, social work and others, along with the issue of crime that eventually it failed to bring advanced changes in the system as it planned to do (Helms 2012). The Crime and Disorder Act of 1998 “served to completely restructure the youth justice system in England and Wales by establishing a new national and local infrastructure” (Goldson and Muncie 2006). Youth Offending Team was an agency developed that reflected the shift from the conventional justice system (Goldson and Muncie 2006). Yet, the Act failed to mainstream community safety as several issues had started cropping in regard to the crime audits and in enhancing the sense of community. Crime audits were a lot dependent on data obtained from police that was narrowly focused on crimes. Enhancement of community safety could not be achieved as the projects largely depended upon groups and organizations that were existent in the society and hence failed to address groups that were sidelined. Thus “community safety projects” under the Act “could divide communities rather than unite them” (Joyce 2013). Thus it could be concluded from this section that the Crime and Disorder Act of 1998 failed to mainstream community safety successfully primarily due to the broad conception of community safety, along with the ineffectiveness of the Act to enhance the sense of community. The groups and the causes behind crimes could not be successfully addressed by the community safety projects thereby not allowing the Act to mainstream community safety and crimes could still occur in the society that were dealt with after the occurrence of the crimes. Section 2: The “ultimate goal of crime prevention is to reduce the risk of being a victim” (What is Crime Prevention? 2006). In order to achieve this, it is essential that opportunities to criminal minded people are not provided to commit illegal activities (What is Crime Prevention? 2006). This section of the study discusses about the strengths and weaknesses of crime prevention measures in reducing crime and disorder, considering theories associated with crime prevention. Over the years, the police departments have evolved in their ways to handle crime and their methods of prevention. The strengths of the system lie with the measures that are considered by the police departments effectively such as “patrol for crime prevention, rapid response to crimes, and retrospective investigations”. More and more aggressive measures are being developed by the police and implemented those tactics (Braga 2002). There are two major theories or ideas related to crime prevention strategies. These include “deterrence and incapacitation”. The main strategy of crime prevention by the police was to initiate the threat of arrest to deter people from committing crimes. It was expected that such threats would create fear in the minds of individuals and hence crimes could be controlled. It was also expected that arrests would incapacitate criminals as they would be removed from the society and put behind the bars (Braga 2002). As the Displacement theory of crime argues, changing the situation in order to prevent a crime does not really prevent the crime but alters its means and ways of occurrence. For example, a crime occurs in region A. With altered situation in the region, the occurrence of the crime might move from region A to region B. Thus it actually does not stop from occurrence. Similarly crime can move from one target to another or from one time to another, or the method of committing the crime might alter as well. As a whole, the occurrence of the crime does not end (Displacement Theory and Crime Prevention 2011). However, there are weaknesses associated with such crime prevention as well. For example, the focus of the police departments has been more on the organization of their works instead of how they can actually prevent crimes. Moreover, the underlying causes behind the occurrence of a crime are not much focused which is essential to actually prevent crime to happen in the first place. A severe gap has been obtained in between attending for the serious professional issues of crimes, and the ones that are local problems of the everyday society (Braga 2002). While on one hand the regulatory frameworks are being tightened to put on strict measures on the offenders, on the other hand, such tightness of frameworks tend to disrupt the lives of the offenders at large. For example, with use of falsely registered vehicles, crime in an organized manner is allowed to take place. Several other offences are hence become associated with such crimes, such as non-payment of insurances, avoidance of traffic regulations, bans on driving, or driving enforcements (Clarke and Tilley 2013). It can thus be concluded that although crime prevention measures have developed significantly over the years, yet there are both strengths and weaknesses of the system that primarily restricts the regulatory frameworks to understand the root causes of crime and disorder in the society, without which crimes can only be dealt with after they occur, and hence cannot be prevented before. Section 3: Antisocial behavior (ASB) refers to the lack of obedience of individuals to the normal standards of the society thus affecting the normal co-existence of individuals within the society (What is Antisocial Behavior? 2013). This section of the study discusses about the extent to which anti-social behavior could be handled within the society, having an understanding of the meaning of the ASB and the approaches prevalent to tackle ASBs. Antisocial behavior is generally considered as a sort of “conduct disorder or personality disorder” and can be found in humans irrespective of their being men or women. Hostility and aggression are some of the characteristics of ASB of people and cause severe concern for the society as a whole. Such behaviors can be reflected among children as well. In adults, treatments of such disorder are difficult to obtain (What is Antisocial Behavior? 2013). Home Group is an example of an organization offering the society with measures to deal with ASB (Tackling anti-social behavior n.d.). One of the most effective approaches for tackling ASB has been suggested by the Home Group is its focus on advices that particularly attend to the needs of the society and crime prevention and the individuals who that affected by the disorder. Home is capable of tackling all associated areas of ASBs through a coordinated approach. It ensures that staff and responsible individuals take their responsibilities sincerely and prepare for reasonable expectations (Tackling anti-social behavior n.d.). Help from such organizations is necessary to deal with ASBs as they specifically target the ASBs to prevent them affecting the society at large. The “Big Society approach is another approach to deal with antisocial behaviors of lower levels” (The Big Society approach to anti-social behavior 2010). This approach focuses on training for resolution of conflicts among workers of the public sector, volunteers and citizens. According to the Woolwich model, although there is significant concern for disorders in individuals that can eventually lead to crimes and aggression, however, citizens lack the power and motivation to intervene in crime prevention methods. It has been obtained that the approaches depended only upon the police services for handling ASBs have limited success. In order to make the process more successful, it is essential that more and more number of individuals and the society as a whole are involved in training of safety skills that would enable dealing with ASBs more (The Big Society approach to anti-social behavior 2010). The relationship between social position of an individual and physical health is essential to understand in relation to understand the antisocial behavior of an individual. However such understanding and evidence has not yet been well developed in the society. Mental disorders are found to be more common in individuals belonging to lower socioeconomic groups. Countries like United Kingdom are encountered with difficulties in dealing with ASB in children as well (Piotrowska 2012). It can thus be concluded from this section of study that antisocial behavior of individuals is still a persistent problem in different countries across the globe. Although different approaches have been and are being implemented towards handling such behaviors, yet the success of such approaches has not been fully achieved as of yet and hence countries are encountered with problems associated with ASBs, and hence needs further development towards effective dealing of the ASBs. Section 4: Partnership working in its term refers to involving the community and the local authority along with the crime prevention agencies and police forces, such that they can in a coordinate and cooperative manner deal with the crimes and disorders taking place in particular regions (Develop a Community Crime Prevention Action Plan n.d.). This section of the study discusses about the concept of partnership working in association with prevention and dealings of crime and disorder, the approaches, and the future of such an approach. Over the years, the importance of partnership working in crime prevention has increased as practitioners have realized the need for strategies to effectively deal with crime and disorders in different locations. An example of this is the U.S. Department of Justice-sponsored Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN) initiative that “provides each of the 94 U.S. Attorney’s Districts in the United States with funds to hire academic research partners to help understand and address serious gun violence problems in local jurisdictions” (Braga 2004). Researchers are now taking initiatives to implement the partnership working technique more effectively (Braga 2004). The example mentioned above, along with the success stories of partnership working in Boston and Indianapolis have led the academic researchers to focus on further understanding of the benefits of partnership working towards contributing in the crime prevention methods. Researchers have become an “integral part” of such crime prevention techniques based on partnership working, reflecting huge scope for the future (Braga 2004). The 1998 Crime and Disorder Act introduced the concept of partnership working. The future of this partnership working is bright in the sense crime prevention measures and researchers are more and more realizing the need for partnership working. It has significance as it becomes difficult for a single agency to deal with crimes alone. When in partnership, different agencies and the local authorities come up various ideas to deal with the crimes thus making it more effective for the prevention of the crimes in the region (Community Safety n.d.). Some of the agencies that work in coordination include South Wales Police Authority, Local Health Board, South Wales Fire and Rescue Service, British Transport Police, Probation, Youth Offending Team, Substance Misuse Agencies, Crime Prevention Panels, and Voluntary/Community Groups that are focused on dealing with crimes together (Community Safety n.d.). A “lot of success” has been achieved by these agencies working in partnership. Provisions for problem solving, and schemes to reduce crime and disorder are being initiated. The “future plans of these partners” involve tackling with problems associated with parks in the region, and also determine plans and schemes that can further tackle crimes in the areas (Community Safety n.d.). As it has also been mentioned earlier in the study, one major problem or weakness that lies with the partnership working is that in most cases the dealing with the crimes is reactive in nature. Thus measures are generally considered after a crime has occurred. Thus it can be concluded that although the measures are still reactive in nature and hence crimes are mostly dealt with after they have occurred, yet partnership working can be said to have proved to be extremely successful and beneficial for the society. The influence of such partnership working has been reflected in the way crimes are now dealt with in the societies and hence the scope of such partnership working can be expected to be high in the future, with focus needs to be placed more on finding the root causes of crimes and prevent them as well. Conclusion: It could be concluded from the study that crime prevention measures have been developed over the years with the Act being in place as well as evolution in the processes of partnership working and handling ASBs in the society. However, there is still need for improvement in the system to make such measures effective for the future of the society. 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